


Never a Winner

by Semebay



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Afterlife, M/M, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-14
Updated: 2015-06-14
Packaged: 2018-04-04 08:41:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4131366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Semebay/pseuds/Semebay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Loki pressed his staff to the chest of one blue-eyed archer, he hadn't realized he'd possessed a dead man.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Hell’s waiting room is a lot brighter than Clint remembers. A lot greener, as well. He takes in the paintings on the wall and the flowering cactus that still resides on the corner of the massive desk in front of him, the one with the weird computer and the glass top that reflects the universe beneath. The galaxy pulses and hums when he places his hand on it, and he’s still not sure if it’s real, or just a really good illusion. It could be anything, really, and he considers asking this time.  


This time being the second time. He’s pretty sure he’s not supposed to have a second time, and when part of the wall slips away and a tall figure with indistinguishable features and a clear frown steps through, he’s pretty sure the guygirlperson agrees. But who’s he to say? He doesn’t know much about this stuff, just that last time he was here, he was given a choice, and given the events of the last few days, he chose wrong.

  
So wrong.

  
“Clinton Barton,” the person says, and their voice trembles like there are a million voices speaking at once and all are overlapping and trying to copy the same airy tone that you always hear on movies when some god or angel descends to earth to enlighten the masses. The person watches him, and Clint waves. “You are not supposed to be here.”

  
“About that,” Clint says, and he takes a second to think over what he’s going to say. How is he supposed to explain that while he was doing his self-imposed duty of watching but not touching, he met a god who decided to touch him with a magic stick and then made him go around murdering people that he had left behind for the greater good. Something. “I got better,” he offers, like it was a normal broken leg or maybe even a broken spine that got him down in the first place. “And now I’m not.” Which is really self-explanatory, because really, _Hell’s waiting room._

  
Person doesn’t say anything. They just sit on the other side of that massive desk and place a hand on the universe, which fades to black and then turns into what looks a lot like the Milky Way. They gesture, and Clint sits in the chair opposite them, trying to pretend he’s not as terrified as he was for the first round.

  
Person watches him without blinking, and Clint stares back with lots of blinking, and then the weird computer is gone and the walls are gone and Clint’s looking at two doors on either side of Person.

  
“You are only supposed to meet me once,” Person says, “and I am only supposed to give you this choice at that time.” Person doesn’t bother gesturing to the doors this time, Clint was here, he knows what the doors mean. Person still says it anyway. “With one door, you remain for eternity until you find your redemption. You watch, you don’t touch. And someday, when everyone you once knew has passed on, has passed by you in life and death, you can move on.” Clint knows. Clint spent years watching everyone he ever knew from the shadows, had figured out the why of the doors. “The other, you move on. You finish your time on this plane of existence, and you leave your life and your everything behind.” Person clasps their hands before them. “You were given time to choose your path. Circumstances being as they are, you don’t need it. Make your decision or I will decide for you.”

  
And really. This time around it’s a no brainer.

 

* * *

 

 

  
Tony Stark has shawarma delivered to SHIELD in the middle of a national disaster. He’s a huge fan of Robin Hood and his merry heart attack, but he’s hungry and he’s not going to sacrifice his appetite, after nearly sacrificing himself, while Robin Hood is in surgery and there’s nothing he can do about it.

  
So Tony gets a table brought in, and chairs, and food, and he sits down to eat with the good Captain and the rest of their ragtag team. Minus Natasha, who he can see pacing through the double doors at the end of the hallway. He didn’t think she was a pacer, but super spy boyfriend is in said surgery, and apparently that’s what makes her have emotions. Whatever. He’ll get details later, or sooner, depending on when he bothers crawling through Jarvis’s backup of SHIELD’s files.

  
He’s just picking up another plate when Fury himself makes an appearance. Fury doesn’t bother stopping to chat, and Tony’s heart breaks just a smidge. Fury throws open the double doors and his voice booms, “What happened?” and nurses run every which way, and Tony sees Natasha’s face. He doesn’t know what expression that’s supposed to be, but Fury doesn’t back off, which seems a bit cold when you’re dealing with next of kin, and then Tony is sure he mishears what comes out of her mouth, because _what?_

  
“It’s a DNA match for Barton, and we don’t know where he came from.”

  
Fury storms further into the medical bay and Natasha goes with him, and Tony pauses long enough have Jarvis look Barton up in SHIELD’s info before he takes another bite. Steve is exhausted beyond reason, which is probably why he doesn’t even look up when Tony orders it. It’s a couple minutes before Jarvis replies, and Tony uses his mask like a tablet to take a look.

  
Clint Barton worked exclusively with Natasha Romanov and Phil Coulson as a part of Strike Team Delta, a team which was disbanded four years ago following Barton’s death, which, judging by the pictures that are so helpfully included with the file, was messy and probably more than traumatizing for the surviving team members who-

  
Tony drops the mask and stomps into the bathroom. He waits there until the nausea passes. It takes a few hours.

 

* * *

 

 

Fury watches the surgery in silence. Natasha is equally stoic at his side, ignoring the others in the observation deck watching where Coulson’s being worked on behind them. Were it any other day, he wouldn’t be able to look away from Coulson’s still form, and where they’re trying to knit ribs and regrow organs and perform miracles to get him up and running again.

  
Maybe he’s scared to watch Coulson die again. Maybe watching Barton die again is easier, since it happened once and it stuck, and maybe the person down on the operating table isn’t Barton but a really convincing clone.

  
A clone with holes in all the same places, and a tattoo on his chest that Fury remembers vividly from when he retrieved the body and his team from what was supposed to be a cake walk but was tainted by criminal amounts of misinformation.

  
“He fought like him,” Natasha says. Her voice is devoid of emotion and she’s reined herself back in. She’s unaffected, uncaring, not watching the man she loved like a brother take his final breaths. “Exactly the same.”

  
“They’re exhuming his body,” Fury says.

  
“He had a brother.”

  
“He’s still in prison. I had someone check.”

  
The volume peaks in the room behind them and Fury turns away. Natasha remains still while she watches the surgeons try to repair the damage that was done years before, when she was rushing an injured Coulson into a van and Barton bought them time. She remembers the inhuman sounds from Coulson’s mouth, and looking back in time to see the bullets rip through him, and through the new vest that he had proudly modeled the night before.

  
He’d bought just enough time. Fury had arrived with backup soon after. Coulson had been in the van, and Natasha had been in the field, trying to recover his body while not getting shot herself. Fury’s team had swept through and she’d finally reached him. She closed his eyes and took his bow, and Fury himself directed the recovery team while she walked with Coulson to the waiting jet.

  
She’d given the bow to Coulson. He didn’t speak until after the funeral.

 

* * *

 

 

The last time Clint was faced with this decision, he clung to them. He couldn’t touch them, and it sucked. But he knew they were alive. He could watch Coulson’s back, even if it killed him not to touch. He could watch Natasha come up with new identities and covers, though he couldn’t laugh at her trying to get just the right amount of sultry in her walk. He could watch them slowly get better and move on without him. Then he could watch SHIELD, and its inner workings and advancements. He could watch over their experiments and pretend he was a watchful protector. Then someone finally saw him and turned him into a machine, and his need to stick around and stay turned resulted in murder and carnage.

  
This time around it’s a no brainer.

  
“Cut me loose,” Clint says, and Person gestures to a door.

  
“Goodbye, Clinton Barton,” Person says, and Clint moves on.


	2. Chapter 2

 

Clint is pretty sure death isn’t supposed to hurt after you’re already dead. If he’d known that moving on to the next whatever meant that he was going to be pulled apart and shredded into pieces, he’d… have done the same thing. When long black tendrils rise around him and block out all color, he shuts his eyes and hopes that he’ll remember them. He hopes he’ll be able to hold onto a piece of them, even if it’s just the emotions he felt when they were together. He’ll take anything can get, even if it’s just a favorite shade of red and the memory of silk under his fingers. Fingers reach into his chest and close around his heart, and he stops breathing and feeling, and this is what death is, an expanse of nothing and everything until even his mind stops and

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

His chest burns. There’s a weight on it, and in it, and fire fills his soul. He can’t open his eyes, but he takes one breath, and another, and there’s something breathing for him because he doesn’t know if he can do it himself. The weight moves into the palm of his hand and it’s so hot it feels like he’s being branded. He tries to hold on and pull it into him, but he can’t make himself move. Everything is so heavy.

 

The weight in his hand curls his fingers and he wants to thank it. He tries, but all he can manage is a click in the back of his throat, and the weight stills.

 

It’s a long time before the soft, “Clint,” reaches him. He wants to throw his soul at it and burrow himself in the voice that hasn’t said his name since they separated amid bullets and flames, but all he can do is click, and something presses against his forehead. His face feels wet, of all things. “Clint,” the voice repeats, and this is the first time he’s heard Coulson cry. “Clint,” he chants, his name, over and over, and his chest burns.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fury stands outside the recovery room with Agent May. Natasha is nowhere to be found, and Agent May takes a breath. They stand side by side, their backs to the wall, and May slips a paper into his hands.

 

“Ash and bullets,” May says. “Forensics has them now.”

 

“Who was sent to medical?”

 

“Sitwell.” May purses her lips. “The fire was still going when we opened the casket. His hands.”

 

“Come get me when they have the results back,” Fury says, and May nods. She pushes herself away from the wall and leaves through a door opposite him. Fury doesn’t watch her go. He slips back into the room and watches silently as Coulson presses his forehead against Clint’s, fingers tangled at their side. He focuses on their fingers, the slight twitch of Clint’s, the shaking in Coulson’s.

 

He waits.


End file.
